Monday, July 16, 2007

I've been spending the last week and my parent's house while I'm teaching this workshop. It's been fun. The house is SO different from when I lived here - gardening and landscaping and remodeling and the like. I never really liked this house as a teen, but now it's really nice.

One of the perks of overdevelopment is that it encroaches on the natural habitat of the local wildlife. Why is this a perk? Because it pushes all of the animals into my parent's backyard, which is all woods. Ever since Boomer (my Golden Retriever) passed awaya few months back, my parents have been leaving out his old dog food out for some raccoons. About seven come out onto their deck every night to chow down, including some babies. They're fine with you watching them from a few feet away if you're in the house looking out through the big window, and will come up if you're already sitting outside, but will run if you walk towards them. They're really cute - I drew a couple.

We also saw a group of turkeys yesterday that walked right up to the deck - two adults and twelve or thirteen babies. Then they all ran off, and it looked like the scene in Jurassic Park with the herd of struthiomimuses, or whatever the ostrich-looking dinosaurs were.

Also, me and mom went through the family chest, which contained a few hitherto-undiscovered gems, among which were my (probably) first mini comic and perhaps the earliest existing Chris Schweizer pirate drawing.

The pirate drawing is from early 1985, which puts me at four years old.

And this comic I remember drawing. This is from when I was five years old, and I made it in Kindergarten. I think that it was bound BEFORE I drew it, and probably each kid got a little book of paper in which to tell a narrative, but I don't think that it's less of a minicomic just because I didn't staple it myself.

Notice the extra "m" on his costume for "man."

As you can see, a man on his way to work (you can tell he's on the way to work because of his hat and briefcase) turns into a monster, for no apparent reason. Notice that the sun is shining. Mighty Man is flying around overhead. Apparently I chose to make him a stick-figure for the purposes of scale.

Mighty Man swoops past the monster, which is knocking over a telephone pole.

The monster's tail smashes someone's house as he breathes fire. Mighty Man still eludes his grasp.

Apparently a hill has formed, because the monster, having finally caught Mighty Man, is standing on one. Little firemen rush to the aid of a person who is preparing to leap from a burning building. Notice that the lone cloud has begun to darken ominously.

The monster continues to hold Mighty Man as the cloud moves in front of the sun. People are still atop the burning building, apparently unassisted by the fireman, who seem to have left.

I'm not sure if Mighty Man is being knocked from the monster's hand by the force of the blast, or, if free, is simply flying away, but cloud has released a lightning bolt which strikes the monster. I think that he's shrinking as a result of this zapping, but this panel was probably drawn as class was coming to a close, and so it's a little less detailed that the previous page depicting such a transformation. The occupants of the burning building are still pleading for assistance.

The monster, changed back into a man, continues on to work. I'm not sure if Mighty Man is shrugging here or what. It's raining!

Anyway, that's it! My first mini. Woooo!

I also just finished a drawing that I'm RIDICULOUSLY happy with (full color, no less), but have to keep it secret for another week and a half - gotta wait for an announcement in San Diego. And I finally got a font I've been drooling over for more than three years: "Spills"!

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comments:

First time checking out your blog here. Loved seeing your first ever mini-comic. I never really thought about it, but I guess I'm a veteran mini-comic creator myself - having done a bunch of them from when I was around 7-10 years old. I gotta see about dragging them out of storage and scanning them into my blog. :)